Fic, Dreadnought, Part 3 of 8. Ryan, 15
Oct. 12th, 2020 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Dreadnought, Part 3 of 8
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Ryan, Claudia, Becker, Lester, Lorraine
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count: 20,000, split into eight parts.
Summary : Waking up in the Permian under a pile of rock wasn’t a high point in Ryan’s life, nor was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, but then help comes along from a very unexpected direction.
A/N : This fic was started four years ago for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
primeval_denial art fic challenge for this wonderful artwork by the very talented ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tli. Naturally, it grew into an utter monster all too quickly and when it became obvious I’d never finish it in time, I wrote The World After as a prequel.
“So I decided there was no point in sitting around on my arse any more,” Ryan concluded, adding, “Sorry, ma’am.”
Claudia Brown gave him a slight smile. “I command an airship, Captain. I can assure you that I’m no shrinking violet, Captain Becker’s command of the Queen’s English can be quite entertaining at times.”
“Queen Elizabeth?” Ryan hazarded, realising he still knew next to nothing about the world in which he’d found himself.
“Queen Victoria.”
“The Second,” Becker added.
Ryan closed his eyes for a brief moment as he struggled to take it all in. Time travel was bad enough, but this had now gone a very long way into weird shit territory.
“Pour the man a drink, Becker,” Claudia instructed. “In fact, I think we could all do with one. So was the unconformity that brought you here the first one you tried?”
Ryan shook his head and gave them a brief run down of his abortive attempts to end up somewhere other than the Permian. As he was talking, Becker slid a glass across the table to him. It contained strong, dark, very palatable rum. A platter of bread, cheese and cold meat had been placed on the table and Claudia waved her hand at it.
Ryan wasn’t slow to follow her instruction. It was a long time since he’d eaten anything other than dried gopher-critter. Nearly being ripped apart by skeletal nasties with a bad attitude and even worse breath had worked up an appetite.
“So what happens now?” he asked, between mouthfuls of hard, tasty cheese.
“There’s no protocol for this sort of thing,” Claudia said, sipping her own rum and cutting a chunk of cheese for herself. “To be quite honest, Captain Ryan, I have absolutely no idea what to do with you, but I have to admit that your arrival hasn’t exactly come at an opportune moment. I’ve got a job to do, and I can’t spare the time to take you to New London.”
Ryan took another swig of rum, enjoying the fiery trail it left on the way to his stomach. “Is the job anything I can help with? It’s not as if I’ve got a pressing engagement anywhere else.”
Claudia glanced over at Becker. Both of their expressions gave very little away, but Ryan prided himself on his ability to read other people. It had saved his life on more than one occasion. A question had been asked and answered. He made a sandwich of cheese and cold ham and ate it, waiting for Claudia’s verdict.
“You could be useful,” she said, guardedly. “What do you know of the Soul Stealers?”
He frowned. “You mean the things that were after me on the plateau?”
She nodded.
“Not much,” he admitted. “They’re fast, deadly, and hard to bring down. In my world, we thought they’d come from the future.”
“We don’t know where they came from,” Claudia said. “They’ve been here since the Disaster. There are plenty of historians who think their arrival caused it, but no one can say for certain.” She glanced again at Becker, and Ryan saw the young captain give a slight nod. “I’m on a retrieval mission, Captain, and I have to warn you that every man and woman on board the Dreadnought is a volunteer.”
Ryan gave a rueful smile. It looked very much like he’d jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, but anything was better than sitting around staring at mile after mile of black sand. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been on one of those, ma’am. What have you got to retrieve?”
“Who,” Claudia corrected. “First Minister Lester has been kidnapped by the Opposition Party. Her Majesty can’t be seen to give in to blackmail, so it’s up to us to get him back. Preferably alive. And preferably in one piece.”
“I’ve done hostage rescue work, ma’am,” Ryan said, doing his best to clamp down on his surprise at hearing Lester’s name, but he was certain Claudia’s sharp brown eyes didn’t miss much.
Becker opened a long leather tube and slid out a sheaf of maps which he spread out on the table. It took Ryan a few moments to realise that the strange shapes that looked like inkblots were actually enormous plateaux, like the one he’d found himself on.
“New London,” Becker said, pointing at a large mountain in the bottom left corner of the map. “Our current position.” He pointed some distance to the north. “That’s where we found you.”
Ryan could see the enormous canyon snaking its way through what looked like barren terrain with no marked settlements.
Becker drew his finger in a straight line almost to the top of the map and then brought it to rest on a seemingly barren plateau about a quarter the size of the one that held New London. “The Eagle’s Nest. Home of Her Majesty’s Opposition. We believe the First Minister is being held there.”
Becker pulled out another plan; this time a map of the city and its defences. Ryan leaned over the table to take a closer look. The plateau was ringed by tall stone walls, with towers spaced out along the edge and a secondary set of defences on what looked to be an internal promontory. The map was accompanied by a series of beautifully detailed drawings illustrating the various walls and towers. Whoever designed it had been very fond of gun emplacements and clearly had no intention of being attacked from the air.
“What sort of artillery have they got?” Ryan asked.
“Eight-inch howitzers,” Becker said. “Palliser system rifled mortars and Hotchkiss quick fire six pounders with Vavasseur Mark 1 pedestal mounted five tonners for back-up.”
“Your ship’s going to be a sitting duck.”
Claudia’s eyes were sombre as she said, “I know.”
Ryan took another mouthful of rum. “Are you seriously going to try to attack them from the air with one ship?”
The Dreadnought’s commander drew in a long breath, exhaled slowly and calmly then said, “No. I’m going to attempt to distract them while Becker makes his way up inside the mountain through a series of tunnels. We will have five other ships to help. They will also be sitting ducks.”
“Secret tunnels?” Ryan failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice. It sounded like something out of an Enid Blyton book.
“Secret tunnels,” Claudia said, the expression on her face deadly serious. “The people who built the Eagle’s Nest wanted to make sure they had a second way off the mountain, but since then, the tunnels have fallen into disuse.”
“So what’s the catch?”
“They’re swarming with Soul Stealers.”
Ryan looked questioningly at Becker. “How big a force are you taking?”
Becker returned his stare. “Are you in?”
Ryan shrugged. “As I said, I haven’t got any other pressing engagements.”
“Then you’ve just doubled the size of the team.”
*****
Ryan pulled his pack out of the locker and started to kit up. Becker watched, his hazel eyes sharp with interest as Ryan strapped a SIG Sauer 226 on his right thigh and the Fairbairn Sykes on his left. After distributing the rest of the knives back into their proper places, Ryan straightened up and looked at the kit Becker had laid out on the table.
The gear was a strange mix of antique weaponry with odd modifications that Ryan didn’t recognise. The main piece of kit was the self-loading shotgun that Becker had been carrying on the deck along with something that looked like a flintlock revolver as well as a hand-held weapon that Ryan didn’t recognise at all.
“Collier nail gun,” Becker supplied, hanging the weapon from a supple back leather belt. “Gas powered, rapid fire, holds 150 nails in each canister.” He stowed what looked like four more canisters into the pocket of a heavy leather flying jacket. “There’s a spare you can take.”
“This is fucking madness,” Ryan commented.
Becker grinned. “Maybe.”
The grin was infectious. Ryan could feel his adrenaline levels already starting to rise and they were still at least two hours away from the drop zone. He pulled the spare M4 and his second SIG out of the pack and handed them to Becker. “Just to prove I can share my toys.”
Becker looked like a kid who’d just discovered Father Christmas was real.
The next hour was spent drilling the young captain in the workings of both weapons. Ryan limited him to no more than half a dozen rounds from each gun, but even with only that, it was clear that Becker was a fast learner, with good reflexes and a natural aptitude for anything that went bang and fired projectiles. In return, Ryan was taken through the workings of the shotgun and the nailgun. The shotgun had enviable stopping power and reminded Ryan of the Mossberg 590, something that would definitely make Becker think Christmas had come early. He slung the weapon across his back with a long leather strap and watched Becker do the same with the M4. The ammunition had been carefully counted out and divided between them. By the time they’d finished kitting up, the pair of them were bristling with weapons and, in addition, Becker had loaded their backpacks with a variety of bombs and smoke canisters.
“So what’s the plan?” Ryan asked. “You don’t seem the suicidal type.”
“I’m not.” Becker did one last check of his personal armoury and then gestured for Ryan to follow him. “The commander will explain.”
They found Claudia on the flight deck of the Dreadnaught, standing by an enormous brass wheel with spokes. An array of dials in front of her measured air speed, barometric pressure and various things Ryan couldn’t easily decipher. Night had fallen while they’d been preparing their weaponry for the task ahead and now Claudia was navigating by instruments alone. She smiled at them and stepped away from the wheel after locking it onto their current course. Ryan could see a hint of sadness in her eyes and he knew that she didn’t expect to see either of them again.
She picked up two black leather bracelets set with what looked to be large quartz crystals.
“There was only time for two of these to be made,” she said, holding one out to each of them, so when you find Lester, you’re going to have to stick very close together.”
Ryan buckled the strap holding the crystals around his left wrist and looked expectantly at Claudia.
“If these work the way they should, they’ll keep the Soul Stealers from getting too close to you. One of our boffins has found a way of keeping them at bay, but there hasn’t been as much time for testing as we would like. The way it was explained to me is that quartz is a piezoelectric material, which means that if you mechanically deform it, it develops charges on its surface. The crystal acts in the same way as a tuning fork, with a natural resonant frequency, and that is then amplified by an anbaric circuit set into the leather. Are you following me?”
Ryan wanted to say yes, but in reality it sounded like she’d just spouted something from one of Connor’s explanations. A thought started to form in his mind and he tentatively asked, “This boffin of yours…”
“Connor Temple’s both brilliant and bonkers,” Claudia said. “He’s been working on a way to repel the Soul Stealers and this is the first thing that has had any sort of effect on them. He believes they’ve evolved from bats, of all things, and that they stalk their prey through a combination of echolocation and a very acute sense of smell. He hasn’t got anywhere trying to block the latter apart from on a very temporary basis, but he’s found that the frequency on which the crystals resonate interferes with their echolocation.”
Ryan’s eyes widened at both the confirmation that there was someone else in this strange world that he would recognise. If Claudia noticed his surprise, she gave no sign of it.
“Don’t ask me to explain in any more detail how this works,” she said. “But I trust Connor. He’s never let us down yet when it comes to gadgets. That bracelet is your passport through the tunnels, Captain Ryan. The Opposition won’t be expecting an attack from that direction, but to provide some additional cover, the Dreadnought and five other ships are going to provide a distraction from the air.”
“Be careful,” Becker said. “If any of their artillery gets to you, you’re going to be stuffed.”
Claudia rested her hand on his arm for a moment. “We’ll stay out of range, but I’m hoping that our presence will draw their fire enough for them to keep eyes on us, not on what’s happening inside their stronghold.”
“What’s your intel like on where Lester’s being held?” Ryan asked. “I’m presuming you’ve got someone on the inside.”
“We have,” Claudia acknowledged. “Lester’s in a suite of rooms in what they call the Pinnacle Tower.” She pointed to the map of the fortress that was now spread out on her charts table. He’s not heavily guarded as even if he gets out of there, there’s nowhere he can go and no way off the Eagle’s Nest. Or at least no way off if you want to survive the experience.”
“Speaking of which, it’s time to get ready for the drop,” Becker said. He looked at Ryan appraisingly. “Have you ever made a skyfall before?”
Ryan couldn’t help his eyebrows rising in surprise. It seemed a bit late in the day to tell him that he was going to be expected to jump out of the airship. He wondered how many other bits of this operation were working on a need to know basis. “I’ve done the training and made several live drops.” He’d never had to do a hot insertion on an op before, but it looked like that time was just about to come.
With Becker’s help, he strapped on a leather harness and backpack, and then the bag containing his weapons went onto his chest to balance the weight.
“Jump, then count to five and pull the strap,” Becker said.
“You’d have made a great teacher,” Ryan commented.
Becker’s lips twitched in amusement. “So I’ve been told. No second thoughts?”
It was Ryan’s turn to grin. “Plenty.”
“Glad to hear it. The last person I want to risk my life with is the kind of twat who thinks this sort of thing is a walk in the park.”
For all that he looked like a kid straight out of Sandhurst, there was a hard edge to Becker that had no doubt been honed on various encounters with the creatures known in this world as the Soul Stealers. Ryan had only gone up against the things once, but they had left him nearly dead and scarred for life. He hoped the return match was going to be more evenly matched.
“Best of luck, captains,” Claudia said, shaking Becker’s hand and then Ryan’s with a grip that was firm yet with no element of anything to prove. She turned to one of her crew and gave the instruction to cut the engines.
The huge ship hung silently in the air. Ryan stood beside the rail where he’d been hauled aboard the Dreadnought and stared out into the darkness. It was a cloudy night as black as a politician’s heart. Claudia had assured them they were over an area of desert away from any plateaux and rocky towers but that didn’t make the prospect of a night jump without any form of light any easier to bear. Becker had equipped him with a small torch that could be wound up to generate light, but he’d been instructed not to use it as it would stand out like a sore thumb to any watchers posted on the ramparts of the Eagle’s Nest. Once in the tunnels, they could rely on the under-barrel torches mounted on the M4s, but they had to get that far first.
And before that, they had the skyfall to survive.
“Give me ten seconds before you follow me out, then five seconds before you pull the strap,” Becker repeated.
Ryan nodded.
Without any goodbyes, Becker simply walked up to the open gate in the airships side and stepped out, disappearing immediately from view.
Ryan’s stomach lurched at the sight, but immediately he started counting, keeping the words slow and steady in his own head. When he got to ten, Ryan followed Becker’s lead and stepped out of the aircraft.
The sudden explosion of adrenaline in his system hit him with the force of an orgasm, forcing rational thought out of his mind for a moment before his training took over, and he resumed the count. Five seconds is a fucking long time when you’re hurtling through the air, weighed down by heavy packs back and front. When he reached five, Ryan gave a firm tug on the leather strap that he’d wrapped around his fist before stepping out of the Dreadnought.
For a sickening moment, he thought nothing had happened then he heard a ripping noise as the parachute unfurled above him and filled with air, arresting his fall with a jerk that went right through his body.
The chute had opened. That was a good start.
Now all he had to do was keep out of the claws of the Soul Stealers long enough to complete the mission.
****
Claudia stood on the bridge of the Dreadnought, her eyes firmly fixed on the instrument panel in front of her.
For now, there was nothing she could do to help Becker and Ryan. Under cover of darkness, she hoped the two men would safely reach the cliffs at the base of the Eagle’s Nest, and if the information their archivist had tracked down was accurate, they would be able to gain entrance to the tunnels that led up through the heart of the mountain. After that, whether they lived or died would be down to Connor’s gizmos.
The young man hadn’t let them down yet, but it was expecting a lot of two wristbands set with crystals to keep a horde of Soul Stealers at bay.
It was her job to hold the Dreadnought on station, ready to rendezvous with the rest of their pitifully small fleet when dawn broke. There were going to be losses, she knew that, but the Queen and her Council believed the risks were worth the possible gain. If they were to have a hope of defeating the Opposition, they needed their chief strategist back. Sir James Lester had a mind as sharp as a razor and a grasp of the murky world of politics that few could rival.
Deep down, she knew that Becker had almost certainly embarked on a suicide mission, but the arrival of the calm, steel-eyed soldier with his strange but clearly deadly weapons had ignited a small spark of hope inside her. She knew little or nothing of the man, but all her instincts told her that he could be trusted and that he would make a formidable ally.
And Claudia Brown hadn’t attained command of one of Her Majesty’s Imperial Air Fleet without knowing when to trust her instincts.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 15
Characters : Ryan, Claudia, Becker, Lester, Lorraine
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Word Count: 20,000, split into eight parts.
Summary : Waking up in the Permian under a pile of rock wasn’t a high point in Ryan’s life, nor was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, but then help comes along from a very unexpected direction.
A/N : This fic was started four years ago for the
primeval_denial art fic challenge for this wonderful artwork by the very talented tli. Naturally, it grew into an utter monster all too quickly and when it became obvious I’d never finish it in time, I wrote The World After as a prequel.“So I decided there was no point in sitting around on my arse any more,” Ryan concluded, adding, “Sorry, ma’am.”
Claudia Brown gave him a slight smile. “I command an airship, Captain. I can assure you that I’m no shrinking violet, Captain Becker’s command of the Queen’s English can be quite entertaining at times.”
“Queen Elizabeth?” Ryan hazarded, realising he still knew next to nothing about the world in which he’d found himself.
“Queen Victoria.”
“The Second,” Becker added.
Ryan closed his eyes for a brief moment as he struggled to take it all in. Time travel was bad enough, but this had now gone a very long way into weird shit territory.
“Pour the man a drink, Becker,” Claudia instructed. “In fact, I think we could all do with one. So was the unconformity that brought you here the first one you tried?”
Ryan shook his head and gave them a brief run down of his abortive attempts to end up somewhere other than the Permian. As he was talking, Becker slid a glass across the table to him. It contained strong, dark, very palatable rum. A platter of bread, cheese and cold meat had been placed on the table and Claudia waved her hand at it.
Ryan wasn’t slow to follow her instruction. It was a long time since he’d eaten anything other than dried gopher-critter. Nearly being ripped apart by skeletal nasties with a bad attitude and even worse breath had worked up an appetite.
“So what happens now?” he asked, between mouthfuls of hard, tasty cheese.
“There’s no protocol for this sort of thing,” Claudia said, sipping her own rum and cutting a chunk of cheese for herself. “To be quite honest, Captain Ryan, I have absolutely no idea what to do with you, but I have to admit that your arrival hasn’t exactly come at an opportune moment. I’ve got a job to do, and I can’t spare the time to take you to New London.”
Ryan took another swig of rum, enjoying the fiery trail it left on the way to his stomach. “Is the job anything I can help with? It’s not as if I’ve got a pressing engagement anywhere else.”
Claudia glanced over at Becker. Both of their expressions gave very little away, but Ryan prided himself on his ability to read other people. It had saved his life on more than one occasion. A question had been asked and answered. He made a sandwich of cheese and cold ham and ate it, waiting for Claudia’s verdict.
“You could be useful,” she said, guardedly. “What do you know of the Soul Stealers?”
He frowned. “You mean the things that were after me on the plateau?”
She nodded.
“Not much,” he admitted. “They’re fast, deadly, and hard to bring down. In my world, we thought they’d come from the future.”
“We don’t know where they came from,” Claudia said. “They’ve been here since the Disaster. There are plenty of historians who think their arrival caused it, but no one can say for certain.” She glanced again at Becker, and Ryan saw the young captain give a slight nod. “I’m on a retrieval mission, Captain, and I have to warn you that every man and woman on board the Dreadnought is a volunteer.”
Ryan gave a rueful smile. It looked very much like he’d jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, but anything was better than sitting around staring at mile after mile of black sand. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been on one of those, ma’am. What have you got to retrieve?”
“Who,” Claudia corrected. “First Minister Lester has been kidnapped by the Opposition Party. Her Majesty can’t be seen to give in to blackmail, so it’s up to us to get him back. Preferably alive. And preferably in one piece.”
“I’ve done hostage rescue work, ma’am,” Ryan said, doing his best to clamp down on his surprise at hearing Lester’s name, but he was certain Claudia’s sharp brown eyes didn’t miss much.
Becker opened a long leather tube and slid out a sheaf of maps which he spread out on the table. It took Ryan a few moments to realise that the strange shapes that looked like inkblots were actually enormous plateaux, like the one he’d found himself on.
“New London,” Becker said, pointing at a large mountain in the bottom left corner of the map. “Our current position.” He pointed some distance to the north. “That’s where we found you.”
Ryan could see the enormous canyon snaking its way through what looked like barren terrain with no marked settlements.
Becker drew his finger in a straight line almost to the top of the map and then brought it to rest on a seemingly barren plateau about a quarter the size of the one that held New London. “The Eagle’s Nest. Home of Her Majesty’s Opposition. We believe the First Minister is being held there.”
Becker pulled out another plan; this time a map of the city and its defences. Ryan leaned over the table to take a closer look. The plateau was ringed by tall stone walls, with towers spaced out along the edge and a secondary set of defences on what looked to be an internal promontory. The map was accompanied by a series of beautifully detailed drawings illustrating the various walls and towers. Whoever designed it had been very fond of gun emplacements and clearly had no intention of being attacked from the air.
“What sort of artillery have they got?” Ryan asked.
“Eight-inch howitzers,” Becker said. “Palliser system rifled mortars and Hotchkiss quick fire six pounders with Vavasseur Mark 1 pedestal mounted five tonners for back-up.”
“Your ship’s going to be a sitting duck.”
Claudia’s eyes were sombre as she said, “I know.”
Ryan took another mouthful of rum. “Are you seriously going to try to attack them from the air with one ship?”
The Dreadnought’s commander drew in a long breath, exhaled slowly and calmly then said, “No. I’m going to attempt to distract them while Becker makes his way up inside the mountain through a series of tunnels. We will have five other ships to help. They will also be sitting ducks.”
“Secret tunnels?” Ryan failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice. It sounded like something out of an Enid Blyton book.
“Secret tunnels,” Claudia said, the expression on her face deadly serious. “The people who built the Eagle’s Nest wanted to make sure they had a second way off the mountain, but since then, the tunnels have fallen into disuse.”
“So what’s the catch?”
“They’re swarming with Soul Stealers.”
Ryan looked questioningly at Becker. “How big a force are you taking?”
Becker returned his stare. “Are you in?”
Ryan shrugged. “As I said, I haven’t got any other pressing engagements.”
“Then you’ve just doubled the size of the team.”
*****
Ryan pulled his pack out of the locker and started to kit up. Becker watched, his hazel eyes sharp with interest as Ryan strapped a SIG Sauer 226 on his right thigh and the Fairbairn Sykes on his left. After distributing the rest of the knives back into their proper places, Ryan straightened up and looked at the kit Becker had laid out on the table.
The gear was a strange mix of antique weaponry with odd modifications that Ryan didn’t recognise. The main piece of kit was the self-loading shotgun that Becker had been carrying on the deck along with something that looked like a flintlock revolver as well as a hand-held weapon that Ryan didn’t recognise at all.
“Collier nail gun,” Becker supplied, hanging the weapon from a supple back leather belt. “Gas powered, rapid fire, holds 150 nails in each canister.” He stowed what looked like four more canisters into the pocket of a heavy leather flying jacket. “There’s a spare you can take.”
“This is fucking madness,” Ryan commented.
Becker grinned. “Maybe.”
The grin was infectious. Ryan could feel his adrenaline levels already starting to rise and they were still at least two hours away from the drop zone. He pulled the spare M4 and his second SIG out of the pack and handed them to Becker. “Just to prove I can share my toys.”
Becker looked like a kid who’d just discovered Father Christmas was real.
The next hour was spent drilling the young captain in the workings of both weapons. Ryan limited him to no more than half a dozen rounds from each gun, but even with only that, it was clear that Becker was a fast learner, with good reflexes and a natural aptitude for anything that went bang and fired projectiles. In return, Ryan was taken through the workings of the shotgun and the nailgun. The shotgun had enviable stopping power and reminded Ryan of the Mossberg 590, something that would definitely make Becker think Christmas had come early. He slung the weapon across his back with a long leather strap and watched Becker do the same with the M4. The ammunition had been carefully counted out and divided between them. By the time they’d finished kitting up, the pair of them were bristling with weapons and, in addition, Becker had loaded their backpacks with a variety of bombs and smoke canisters.
“So what’s the plan?” Ryan asked. “You don’t seem the suicidal type.”
“I’m not.” Becker did one last check of his personal armoury and then gestured for Ryan to follow him. “The commander will explain.”
They found Claudia on the flight deck of the Dreadnaught, standing by an enormous brass wheel with spokes. An array of dials in front of her measured air speed, barometric pressure and various things Ryan couldn’t easily decipher. Night had fallen while they’d been preparing their weaponry for the task ahead and now Claudia was navigating by instruments alone. She smiled at them and stepped away from the wheel after locking it onto their current course. Ryan could see a hint of sadness in her eyes and he knew that she didn’t expect to see either of them again.
She picked up two black leather bracelets set with what looked to be large quartz crystals.
“There was only time for two of these to be made,” she said, holding one out to each of them, so when you find Lester, you’re going to have to stick very close together.”
Ryan buckled the strap holding the crystals around his left wrist and looked expectantly at Claudia.
“If these work the way they should, they’ll keep the Soul Stealers from getting too close to you. One of our boffins has found a way of keeping them at bay, but there hasn’t been as much time for testing as we would like. The way it was explained to me is that quartz is a piezoelectric material, which means that if you mechanically deform it, it develops charges on its surface. The crystal acts in the same way as a tuning fork, with a natural resonant frequency, and that is then amplified by an anbaric circuit set into the leather. Are you following me?”
Ryan wanted to say yes, but in reality it sounded like she’d just spouted something from one of Connor’s explanations. A thought started to form in his mind and he tentatively asked, “This boffin of yours…”
“Connor Temple’s both brilliant and bonkers,” Claudia said. “He’s been working on a way to repel the Soul Stealers and this is the first thing that has had any sort of effect on them. He believes they’ve evolved from bats, of all things, and that they stalk their prey through a combination of echolocation and a very acute sense of smell. He hasn’t got anywhere trying to block the latter apart from on a very temporary basis, but he’s found that the frequency on which the crystals resonate interferes with their echolocation.”
Ryan’s eyes widened at both the confirmation that there was someone else in this strange world that he would recognise. If Claudia noticed his surprise, she gave no sign of it.
“Don’t ask me to explain in any more detail how this works,” she said. “But I trust Connor. He’s never let us down yet when it comes to gadgets. That bracelet is your passport through the tunnels, Captain Ryan. The Opposition won’t be expecting an attack from that direction, but to provide some additional cover, the Dreadnought and five other ships are going to provide a distraction from the air.”
“Be careful,” Becker said. “If any of their artillery gets to you, you’re going to be stuffed.”
Claudia rested her hand on his arm for a moment. “We’ll stay out of range, but I’m hoping that our presence will draw their fire enough for them to keep eyes on us, not on what’s happening inside their stronghold.”
“What’s your intel like on where Lester’s being held?” Ryan asked. “I’m presuming you’ve got someone on the inside.”
“We have,” Claudia acknowledged. “Lester’s in a suite of rooms in what they call the Pinnacle Tower.” She pointed to the map of the fortress that was now spread out on her charts table. He’s not heavily guarded as even if he gets out of there, there’s nowhere he can go and no way off the Eagle’s Nest. Or at least no way off if you want to survive the experience.”
“Speaking of which, it’s time to get ready for the drop,” Becker said. He looked at Ryan appraisingly. “Have you ever made a skyfall before?”
Ryan couldn’t help his eyebrows rising in surprise. It seemed a bit late in the day to tell him that he was going to be expected to jump out of the airship. He wondered how many other bits of this operation were working on a need to know basis. “I’ve done the training and made several live drops.” He’d never had to do a hot insertion on an op before, but it looked like that time was just about to come.
With Becker’s help, he strapped on a leather harness and backpack, and then the bag containing his weapons went onto his chest to balance the weight.
“Jump, then count to five and pull the strap,” Becker said.
“You’d have made a great teacher,” Ryan commented.
Becker’s lips twitched in amusement. “So I’ve been told. No second thoughts?”
It was Ryan’s turn to grin. “Plenty.”
“Glad to hear it. The last person I want to risk my life with is the kind of twat who thinks this sort of thing is a walk in the park.”
For all that he looked like a kid straight out of Sandhurst, there was a hard edge to Becker that had no doubt been honed on various encounters with the creatures known in this world as the Soul Stealers. Ryan had only gone up against the things once, but they had left him nearly dead and scarred for life. He hoped the return match was going to be more evenly matched.
“Best of luck, captains,” Claudia said, shaking Becker’s hand and then Ryan’s with a grip that was firm yet with no element of anything to prove. She turned to one of her crew and gave the instruction to cut the engines.
The huge ship hung silently in the air. Ryan stood beside the rail where he’d been hauled aboard the Dreadnought and stared out into the darkness. It was a cloudy night as black as a politician’s heart. Claudia had assured them they were over an area of desert away from any plateaux and rocky towers but that didn’t make the prospect of a night jump without any form of light any easier to bear. Becker had equipped him with a small torch that could be wound up to generate light, but he’d been instructed not to use it as it would stand out like a sore thumb to any watchers posted on the ramparts of the Eagle’s Nest. Once in the tunnels, they could rely on the under-barrel torches mounted on the M4s, but they had to get that far first.
And before that, they had the skyfall to survive.
“Give me ten seconds before you follow me out, then five seconds before you pull the strap,” Becker repeated.
Ryan nodded.
Without any goodbyes, Becker simply walked up to the open gate in the airships side and stepped out, disappearing immediately from view.
Ryan’s stomach lurched at the sight, but immediately he started counting, keeping the words slow and steady in his own head. When he got to ten, Ryan followed Becker’s lead and stepped out of the aircraft.
The sudden explosion of adrenaline in his system hit him with the force of an orgasm, forcing rational thought out of his mind for a moment before his training took over, and he resumed the count. Five seconds is a fucking long time when you’re hurtling through the air, weighed down by heavy packs back and front. When he reached five, Ryan gave a firm tug on the leather strap that he’d wrapped around his fist before stepping out of the Dreadnought.
For a sickening moment, he thought nothing had happened then he heard a ripping noise as the parachute unfurled above him and filled with air, arresting his fall with a jerk that went right through his body.
The chute had opened. That was a good start.
Now all he had to do was keep out of the claws of the Soul Stealers long enough to complete the mission.
****
Claudia stood on the bridge of the Dreadnought, her eyes firmly fixed on the instrument panel in front of her.
For now, there was nothing she could do to help Becker and Ryan. Under cover of darkness, she hoped the two men would safely reach the cliffs at the base of the Eagle’s Nest, and if the information their archivist had tracked down was accurate, they would be able to gain entrance to the tunnels that led up through the heart of the mountain. After that, whether they lived or died would be down to Connor’s gizmos.
The young man hadn’t let them down yet, but it was expecting a lot of two wristbands set with crystals to keep a horde of Soul Stealers at bay.
It was her job to hold the Dreadnought on station, ready to rendezvous with the rest of their pitifully small fleet when dawn broke. There were going to be losses, she knew that, but the Queen and her Council believed the risks were worth the possible gain. If they were to have a hope of defeating the Opposition, they needed their chief strategist back. Sir James Lester had a mind as sharp as a razor and a grasp of the murky world of politics that few could rival.
Deep down, she knew that Becker had almost certainly embarked on a suicide mission, but the arrival of the calm, steel-eyed soldier with his strange but clearly deadly weapons had ignited a small spark of hope inside her. She knew little or nothing of the man, but all her instincts told her that he could be trusted and that he would make a formidable ally.
And Claudia Brown hadn’t attained command of one of Her Majesty’s Imperial Air Fleet without knowing when to trust her instincts.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-14 05:19 pm (UTC)